45k salary entirely eaten by childcare

[Sofiewoo]

Granted salaries aren’t what they were only a handful of years ago but aibu to be shocked that my 45k salary is now entirely eaten by childcare and getting to work??
I figured if you are earning in the 20s you would assume that but not mid 40s!

I’m trying to weigh up whether to just take the next year and a half off instead of working for nothing. I know, pension, career blah blah but it’s mentally very difficult to juggle drop offs, work schedules and sickness but be no better off financially at the end of the month.

Did anyone else not realise it was a bad as this?

How can you even say that? Having spent time with my friend who adopted a child who was neglectfully parented aged 0-3 the damage to him both physically and mentally is incalculable.

Totally agree with you!
And don’t get me started on elderly parents.

So are you saying you’d rather not have the funded hours @Sofiewoo ? That sounds so much more combative than I mean it to, sorry. my bill went down a lot with the funded hours.

As someone who was a SAHM as at the time it did not make economic sense , I am so regretting it now . Made the crazy assumption that DH employment and pension would be worth it. Now ? Divorced, crap pension and renting . And the icing on top is that my adult DCs think I was foolish / workshy and wasted my talents . Take the financial hit for a few years, it most definitely will be worth it long term although must be difficult to see this now .

Neglect and abuse is a bit different to being in nursery, isn’t it

As you have a 3.5 so assume starting school next sept as in 2026 I would look for a cm now that covers your ideal school

yes obv you don’t know what school you will get but if live near one or 3 class intake you are likely to get the one you want

a cm will be cheaper and then you will have your eldest settles before they start school

rather then leave nursery. Start school and new childcare setting

tho equally many kids do this and fine

but if you want to cut costs that is what I would do

I was a nanny for 20yrs and been a mn for 14yrs so know a fair amount about childcare

I didn’t say that. It’s the dismissal of the importance of years 0-3 I was disputing. As a parent / carer stuff you do that you don’t even realise has a massive impact on a baby’s development. The effect on a child of not being interacted with is huge. I was shocked.

I didn’t choose an expensive nursery, the nursery is on the lower end of average out of any near me. Don’t make pull things from the air and claim it as facts.
Part time won’t reduce the income vs nursery costs as I don’t have access to any free family childcare.
You also can’t just switch to a school nursery, the school nursery application closed in Jan for this September and between then and now my fees have gone up again.
The useful advice has come from those with similarly aged children. It’s very easy to tell which posts come from people who have no understanding of the current childcare system, it’s usually the snarky and out of touch comments.

“I said almost all of my take home salary went on childcare.”

Actually, you said “45k salary entirely eaten by childcare”. That’s patently not true, because now your non-statutory deductions account for £500 a month. I’m on a £40k FTE salary with no degree so no student finance, I was at home for the early years then p/t while still building a career. Your degree was a choice so you’re choosing those payments, and pension is also a choice (a good one, but sometimes daily living is more important in the short term). You are still earning good money, it’s not all going on childcare, and you would still have child-related costs if you weren’t working, with even less money coming in. Grit your teeth and get through these few years, then things will get easier and you’ll have more disposable income.

also one big pension isn’t your best tax efficient model either…I know, I’m a pensions bore but I messed this up in my 30s due to changing jobs, contracting, short term thinking re moving then focusing on the kids and not the long term, hit my 40s and realised I have to put in a lot more now for worse returns due to not getting on with it earlier..

Why is it never the man who says, ‘half my salary is being eaten up by childcare, why don’t I go part time’? Despite, in the event of a break up it’s usually the woman who is worse off.

Childcare is a joint cost, it’s not helpful to think of it all on one person. Think of all the other benefits you’d lose if you gave up work (pension, promotion, sanity…)

could you consider getting a nanny? It may be cheaper. I would ask to go part time if it was me but try to keep my career going as it is hard to get back into work when kids are older. I did mainly crappy jobs to fit around family when I returned eventually after a few years off and regretted not going back after maternity leave. Seemed a good idea at the time but got a bit boring and meant I found it hard to get a job at my level once I was ready so did jobs beneath me.

If I had known the fees would have increased in Jan AND April probably would have looked into this more! I will look, but I imagine the school nurseries are over subscribed now that it would be a late application as my day nursery places had waiting lists of over 12 months.

yes a childminder is also a good option for you and definitely cheaper and more personal care. I am not a fan of nurseries personally. Presumably you will need before and after school care anyway so a childminder would work for you now and also when your eldest is at school. Children are expensive. Wait til university! £800 per month rent. Keep working as you will need money when they are eating you out of house and home as teenagers and wanting driving lessons which cost me about a thousand pounds for one child.

Good BBC series called Payslip Britain all about why wages are lower now.

The average salary in real-terms today is the same as it was in 2006. Pay has stagnated worse than it has done for the past 200 years.

(Minimum wage has risen, because of the government bringing in laws, so the lifestyle of minimum wage earners has gone up, but the middle earners has not.)

Have you done the maths on how much it would be if you go part time? When I went back to work the way the funding, tax bands, and nursery fees interacted meant that the difference between me doing 3 days and 4 days a week would give me just £40 net for the fourth day after tax, travel and nursery fees. So I stuck at three days.

Childcare is presumably for just a short amount of time. It's reasonable, to me, that you take a hit on take-home pay to invest in your career long-term.

Curious about the person who said they were on at least 50k who said they dropped their hours, claimed UC and got 100% of their childcare funded? It usually is just up to 85%?

@Fairyladyonwheels it was.

And a lot are putting their fees up citing rises in employee National Insurance Contributions which has gone up just over 1%…

It depends on the age.

Under 2s get c£11 per hour but the nursery can look after 3 using one member of staff

age 2 is c£8 per hour with one member of staff looking after 5

Ages 3 to 4 is c£5.60 per hour but they can look after 8 (or 13 if they have a QTS).

The government are putting capital investment into new nurseries on school premises - very much needed!
As schools aren’t paying costs that nurseries have such as mortgage or rent of premises this should be cheaper and they will offer hours without top ups.

If they don’t have wraparound, try and find a childminder for before and afterschool. I used one and she was fab- much better than the nursery my 2 attended.

I’ve skimmed this thread but wondering could you move both children to a childminder who takes funded places?

ours is £5 an hour, and we used her for 45 hours a week per child. With 30 hours funding that’s only costing us £75 a week, less the tax free amount.

much more affordable.

we recently changed to using our school nursery 9-3 which is all 30 funded hours, then just pay childminder for wraparound 15 hours a week.

when it comes to school holidays we then have the option to pay her for the full 45 hours a week per child if we want to, and means we can take our holidays in term time to save more there.

there has to be a cheaper way for you!

my husband earns 27k and whilst we would probably be marginally better off some months if he didn’t work, he still does because he wants to build a pension, protect his mental health by working, and give our children the opportunity to link with other kids in an educational setting.

we’re not just paying someone else to raise our kids, we juggle it (finances as well!) to play the long game

From the BBC:

‘Figures obtained by the BBC that show there were almost 20,000 reports of serious childcare incidents in England's nurseries in the past five years.
That is an average of about 75 "significant events" reported to Ofsted each week - including incidents of serious injury or significant harm.
The latest figures for serious incidents in the year 2023-24 are 40% higher than five years previously.’

Obviously this is still rare, but not rare enough imo. And that’s without taking into account the general lack of parental interaction.

Sounds perfect!

I hope that the government put up childminder rates for 3 and 4 year olds so the funding is more beneficial to them as they can only have a max of 6 children under 5 I think it is.

With the current addition of more funding going into extending school nurseries, this should help a lot of parents.

A full time nanny will cost at least upwards of £3k a month, with tax free.